Finally, it looked like the clear neat lines of a telegraph from Beacon Hill and the Mayweather residence.
“Esther!” Nic picked her up and spun her several times over their flat’s creaky boards. “We can go home.”
Esther laughed and parted his lips under hers. “Darling,” she murmured against his mouth and tightened her hold. “I am home.”
Author’s Note
Author’s Note:
If you would like to finesse your skills in either piano tuning or chess, I highly recommend not looking to this story as a guidebook.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
Rachel McMillan is the author of the Herringford and Watts mysteries, the Three Quarter Time series of contemporary romances set in opulent Vienna, and the Van Buren and DeLuca mysteries praised for bringing an authentic 1930’s Boston world to life while normalizing the fictional conversation surrounding mental illness. Her first work of non-fiction, described as a romantic’s guide to independent travel, releases in 2020. Rachel lives in Toronto, Canada.
Also by Rachel McMillan
The Herringford and Watts Series
A Singular and Whimsical Problem
The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder
Of Dubious and Questionable Memory
A Lesson in Love and Murder
Conductor of Light
The White Feather Murders
The Van Buren and DeLuca Series
Murder at the Flamingo
Murder in the City of Liberty
The Three Quarter Time Series:
Love in Three Quarter Time
Rose in Three Quarter Time
Of Mozart and Magi
Twice Upon A Time
Copyright © 2019 by Ashley Clark
Published by
Woven Words
9 Cedar Trail, Asheville, NC
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form by any means—digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover image ©2019 by Hillary Manton Lodge
Cover art photos ©Adobe Stock used by permission.
Published in the United States of America by Ashley Clark
Dedication
To my husband Matthew and our son Nathanael—my happily-ever-after.
And to Betsy, Pepper, and Rachel—how thankful I am that my own story intersected with all of yours.
1
Under no circumstances would she fall for him again.
She could fall for her family’s farmhouse, or the birds’ song at dawn, or even the pie. But she could not—would not—fall for Sawyer Hammonds.
Lord help her.
Emma Jane Bailey trailed her fingertips along the wooden fence as February sunlight filtered through the empty branches of the pecan trees. Rows and rows of them, perfectly planted with just enough space for harvesting in between.
Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.
Several empty nutshells clustered at her feet. It was the funny thing about pecan farming. Only way to ripen the nuts was waiting ‘til they were good and ready. No amount of extra sunlight or pressure would do a thing. Some were just late bloomers.
Emma took a deep breath and looked at the family farmhouse before her. She, for one, was so not ready.
And yet, here she stood.
“Mama, since you decided y’all are moving and the farm belongs to me, I’ve been considering what to do with it,” she murmured, pacing.
She shifted on her wedge boots in anticipation, thinking how her mother may respond. This may be an imaginary conversation, but the real talk was coming, and she knew Mama well enough to have an answer ready.
“Yes, I know you weren’t expecting me so soon.” She shook her head. “But the potential buyer wants to see the property in three weeks.” At her back, the fire-red barn cast a late-afternoon shadow that loomed beyond where she stood. Emma sighed.
Inevitably, her mother would ask about him. Better have an answer ready for that too.
Emma mulled over the question and fiddled with the strand of pearls at her neck. “No doubt to your chagrin, Mama, my return has nothing to do with ‘that dreamboat’ Sawyer—”
“Dreamboat, eh?”
His voice still ran deep as the Magnolia River.
Her breath caught. Of course she’d expected to see him, but not so soon. Not with airplane hair and a half-planned articulation of her purpose here.
Emma turned, taking in the sight of him—a sight she had tried to keep out of her memory for years. Her flittering heart sank. He wore his signature plaid button-down with a backwards baseball cap over his loose curls, and the familiar smile that made her blood run cold.
Even with his cap on, he was ginger in every sense of the word—from his hair to the spicy-sweet pull from the corner of his lips.
Lord, she had to stop looking at his lips.
His shoes were filthy with the soil of her family’s orchard.
“Sawyer,” she hissed. She pocketed her hands in her red cotton dress so he wouldn’t see them trembling. “How long have you been standing there? Did you sneak out of the barn?”
Sawyer raised his ball cap from his head and ran one hand through the curl at the ends of his hair. He pushed up off the pecan tree where he leaned. His faded plaid skimmed against his arms, and his smile was all kinds of endearing. “Long enough to hear your imaginary conversation with your mother.”
Emma blinked.
“What’s the matter, Em? I never remember you being at a loss for words.” He brushed the dirt from his jeans. “Do I look better than you remembered?”
Sawyer punctuated the question with a confident wink, and darn it if he did look better than she remembered because—my, how she remembered.
“You’d look better on the other side of the fence.”
And yet, he took a step closer. “You’re right to have an answer ready because she’s definitely going to ask about me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and his smile widened the tiny wrinkles around his eyes. “Your mama, I mean.”
Emma smacked her red lipstick. “Just as humble as ever, I see.”
Sawyer dipped his chin until their eyes were level. The reach of his gaze unnerved her, and suddenly she was a high school girl on a porch swing all over again. But he couldn’t know that. He could never know how heartbroken she’d been when he came home from college and she… didn’t.
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” he murmured.
No, we couldn’t have that, could we?
Sawyer scratched the five o’clock shadow of his jaw and looked toward her parents’ house. Everything about it was just as she’d remembered, down to the flower planters lining the wraparound porch. Yet somehow her life here felt distant, like trying to remember a dream.
She’d done a good job of that, at least—forgetting. Boston kept her plenty busy.
“They’re not home, you know.”
Emma squared her shoulders. “How do you know when they’re home, anyway?”
He shook his head slowly. “Haven’t been here five minutes, and you’re already picking fights with me. Just like old times, I see.”
Emma groaned. She took one step closer and looked up at him as if her height put her eye-to-eye rather than five-foot-six-inches on a good day. “Let me be clear, Sawyer. I am in Alabama for one purpose and one purpose alone.” She wanted to put her pointer finger straight to his chest but didn’t dare touch the man. Reigniting old sparks was the last thing she needed. “I’m going to sell my parents’ house as
quickly as possible.”
He hesitated for a long moment and watched her. His gaze fixed with her own, and he seemed to see her as she hadn’t been seen in years. What was he thinking? And she wondered—did he notice the new little lines around her eyes, the bitten fingernails, the extra ten pounds? When he looked at her, did he see the woman from years ago or the woman she’d become?
Emma blinked and looked back at him. He held his arms tight across his chest and raised his chin slightly in his ever-so-classic posture of silent defiance.
“Your parents needed help. That’s probably one reason they gave the farm to you.”
“Shows how much you know about the situation.” Emma rolled her shoulders once again and turned toward the house. “Mama has been quite clear that they planned to give me the farm all along.”
On my—our—wedding day. But since that never happened…
“You were going to say something else. I can tell.” Pecan shells crunched under his feet as he followed.
She took several more steps before stopping to face him. He caught up, and she wished he would stand farther away than a modest four feet because even that was proving to stir her with all manner of feelings she’d prefer not to be stirred. “I can handle things around here myself, thank you.”
Sawyer held back the half grin she noticed beginning at the corner of his lips.
She needed to make her point.
He held up his hands. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t you sweetheart me. We’re not in high school.” She put him in his place with her glare. “Besides, it’s demeaning.”
“My sincere apologies. Would you prefer Her Highness?” His sly grin began to spread.
“My own name would do the trick.”
Sawyer nodded his head. “Em.”
Her name on his lips—his tone so suddenly serious—sent a pulsing tide through the still waters of her heart. Oh, she was sure to dream about this tonight. She needed to get on with this conversation so she could get away from him, and fast.
“Before you go inside your house… well, I know it’s been a while since you’ve visited, and a few things have”—he scratched his eyebrow—“changed.”
As if she didn’t know that. She simply stared at him in response.
He cleared his throat and straightened his ball cap.
Emma hurried up the steps to the wraparound porch and lifted the pot of geraniums beside the front door. The sooner she could get away from him, the better. Sawyer always had a way of making her lose her ever-living mind.
A scruffy orange tabby scrambled out from behind the pot. Emma jumped back. Poor little thing. Seemed she had scared it even more than it scared her. The cat darted under the porch swing, then jumped down into the garden, and she glimpsed a familiar little heart shape on its back.
“That isn’t the same stray from when I lived here, is it?”
“How many orange tabby’s do you think your mama allows?”
Emma crouched down and called out to the cat. Her heart shattered like a vase full of flowers on the kitchen floor. To think that the stray had been living through cold snaps and heat waves and Lord only knew what else for years was simply tragic. She darted her eyes toward Sawyer. “Why didn’t anyone let it inside? The little guy lives out here alone?”
“Try as you may, Em, you can’t convince a person where they belong.” Sawyer moistened his lips.
“A cat, you mean.” Emma glanced through the frosted glass of the front door. When had her parents moved the spare key? “You said a person.”
“Sure.” Sawyer cleared his throat. “The point is, I do feed Beastly every day, and I even coax him into the barn when it’s cold out. But strays will do what strays will do. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, you can’t get too attached or they’ll break your heart.”
“Beastly?” Emma tried jiggling the handle to the front door, but nothing gave way. She checked under the doormat, then the crevice in the wood beside the porch swing, and all the other usual hiding spots. Nothing.
Maybe Sawyer was right.
“That’s what I named the scraggly guy. Fitting, don’t you think?”
The wind blew a slew of leaves toward the front door and brought a chill that touched Emma down to her bones. She shivered and wrapped her hands around her arms. Her car was her only option at this point if she couldn’t get inside the house.
She started to pivot on her wedge boots when he called from behind her. She turned to see him standing on the last step of the front porch. His arms still lay crossed over his chest, but now he leaned against the railing. Comfortable as ever, wasn’t he?
“Your parents don’t hide a spare key anymore since they had that break-in scare.”
Emma tucked her chin-length hair behind her ears and tried to keep her racing pulse to herself. Someone had broken into her parents’ house?
“You knew about it, right?”
She took the steps down the porch two at a time and breezed past him. “You think I wouldn’t know someone tried to rob my parents’ house?”
Why hadn’t Mama mentioned that? Emma quickened her pace to her car. But he matched it with ease.
“They won’t be back until supper time. Come with me to The Wistful Teacup. I’ve got to pick my mom up. Her car’s in the shop. You know she’d love to see you.”
Emma hesitated. The charm of that library-turned-teashop was enough to turn her heart back toward this tiny old town. Which was the last thing she needed right now. Because then she might risk opening her heart back to Sawyer and losing her focus on the point of being here—selling the land.
“No, thank you.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and reached for her car keys.
“Come on, Em.” Sawyer leaned his hand against her car. “You never told her goodbye when you left us for Boston. After all she’s done for you, don’t you think she at least deserves a hello this time?”
Emma clenched her teeth and stared at him. After she left them? My, he had gall. She’d give him that much. Some women may call it endearing. Women far more naïve than she.
“I’m only staying five minutes.”
Sawyer smiled.
They both knew from prior experience that five minutes was all he would need to do a number on her heart.
2
Sawyer would like to think of himself as the kind of guy who worked hard. Charmed the ladies. Certainly the kind of guy who played his cards well. But the sight of Em in the passenger seat of his Jeep was very nearly more than even he could handle.
Thing was, he’d spent a lot of days in the harvest, in the pruning, in the fields. But not one day went by that he didn’t dream of Emma Jane, whether in sleeping or waking.
It was his fault—all that happened between them. He wasn’t good enough for her, just as she said. Not that she said that in so many words. But she hadn’t needed to. He had sense enough to know what the woman meant.
Sawyer slowed his Jeep as he approached a stop sign, then took a glance at her. She was scrolling through something on her phone rather than the forward view. But why should he expect any different? She wasn’t about to come running into his arms. If anything, she was about to run away. Again.
He needed to keep things professional. Keep his wits about him for the days or weeks or however long she planned to stay. Because Lord knew Emma did something to the best of his intentions.
Sawyer took hold of the steering wheel with both hands and turned into the gravel parking lot of The Wistful Teacup. The Tudor-style tea shop was only one part of the Hammonds Hollow Gift Store, which also included a larger warehouse where his family and Emma’s parents sold most of their pecan harvest.
Emma looked up at the shop and set her phone down as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Her posture changed. Though she sat taller, she somehow seemed lighter too.
He couldn’t explain how he knew it—just that familiarity two people share once they’ve been in love—but
she felt something when she looked at this place. Same thing she’d always felt, he guessed.
Sawyer turned off the ignition and reached for his door handle. “I’d ask if you need help out, but—”
Emma was out of his Jeep and halfway to the door before he could finish the thought.
Sawyer tossed his keys in the air, caught them, and shoved them into his pocket. He grinned as he watched her climb the two steps of his mother’s tea shop. She fit in perfectly here, like a tiny British mouse that knew all the secret crevices and the stories that happened in between.
He never had understood the fascination with the place. Bunch of knickknacks and painted teacups piled here to high heaven. Tiny little brown bags filled with every sort of loose leaf tea mixture a person could imagine. Mismatched furniture like his grandmother’s antique chairs—so old, they were begging to rot. And the books. Oh, don’t even get him started on the books. More on those shelves than any one person could read in a lifetime. But his mother and Emma had always seen something magical among these walls.
Emma hesitated at the door. Was she waiting for him?
He hustled the rest of the way to her. Even if her hesitation was subtle, he’d take it. He’d take it in a heartbeat.
Emma swung open the door. Dangling little white lights hung over the entry and nearly slapped him in the face, just as they had been doing for the past decade. How long was it going to take before the bulbs in those things finally blew? He waved them like a web from his eyes as the bell above the door chimed.
“Heavens to Betsy! What is this beautiful apparition before my eyes?” His mother’s voice brought a smile to his face. Sawyer ducked the rest of the way under the lights and stepped toward the counter. His mother darted out from behind it to throw her arms around Emma.
Finding Ever After Page 22